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Forum:Should we have blogs?
Blogs As for blogs, in addition to the Red Dead wiki, these wikis are also making good use of the blog as a way to post news - Fallout, Dragon Age, The Old Republic, and Dead Rising. To use it for news, you just create a blog post and add it to Category:News. Then on the main page, just use this code: News plain date News That will display a feed of blog posts that are in the News category. A couple notes about the variables: summarylength says display the first XXX characters of each post and count says to display the most recent X posts. I would recommend leaving summary, timestamp, and type as they are. If you want to test drive it, I just setup a mock news blog list at my personal testing wiki. Use to make a new post (don't forget the News category), then click the refresh icon on the blog list and your post will appear at the top. JoePlay (talk) 18:38, July 23, 2010 (UTC) :So, would you agree to blogs being activated here? We've found them very convenient for newsposting on some other wikis that Joe mentioned, including my own Fallout wiki. Ausir(talk) 23:25, August 11, 2010 (UTC) About blogs - I think the initial iteration of blogs was included in the social tools package, which you only got a few features of here. Sometime later, blogs were released by themselves on all wikis. It may be possible that because of the social tools being here, the blogs weren't added. If you don't want them, that's fine. However, blogs do make for a good news reporting tool that allows the community to comment on the news. See Red Dead Wiki for an example (right column). If you'd like to have blogs here, let me know and I'll ask about getting them enabled. JoePlay (talk) 19:19, July 20, 2010 (UTC) That's what JoePlay has posted. I was wondering if you're interested in blogs? PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 19:48, July 20, 2010 (UTC) If Halopedia is anything to go by, it seems blogs don't give any additional capabilities over forums. In return for being prettier, they're a bit harder to manage (a new category per day, no place to survey them all at once like a forum, can we delete comments?), not as easy to use when interesting blogs inevitably turn into forum threads (new comments do not show up in recent changes, width of comment area is more limited), and seem to attract much more junk and soapboxing than forums (get your own website, or get into one of the SC fan forums!) :Not surprisingly, I don't like the idea already. - Meco (talk, ) 21:26, July 20, 2010 (UTC) ::Actually, Halopedia for some reason uses an old blog extension, not the one that is currently being used on most other wikis. New comments do show up in recent changes in the currently used extension. The capabilities they do give is newsposting, like at The Vault and others. Ausir(talk) 08:27, August 18, 2010 (UTC) *Well, I vote for blogs for 10 reasons (you get it? ten. It is quite a lot): 1) I want to get those badges; 2) They are more accessible. I would have never got to these forums if I didn't receive a link to it. 3) Everyone can create a blog about the topic they want, not having to go to the forums. 4) Blogs are the future of communication? 5) Nearly every wikia has blogs? I mean, every newly-created wikia, with less than 100 articles has a blog. 6) No one can delete a post from a blog (or can they?), while from a forum, they can. 7) Blog sound nicer than forum. Forum sounds too more serious. (I think this is an anti-reason, since we come here to work, not to have fun. Well, if we make things funnier, we would get more contributors, won't we?) 8) A blog is a bit easier to maintain as well.http://www.webmasterworld.com/webmaster/3207242.htm - Well, I think those people spoke about 1 blog, not so many blogs. We are a community, so we use a forum (again, more of an anti-reason. I really need some good reasons. why did I said "10"?) 9) No one would ask questions over and over? 10) Many will stop using talkpages as forums? *If Meco gives me 11 reasons why shouldn't we have a blog, then those 10 upper motives will be canceled. (Let me help you, Meco. As I gave such wonderful motives, you need a head start - 1)They are harder to categorize; 2)Blogs are usually decentralized from the initial subject;) Andra2404 15:08, August 24, 2010 (UTC) :So in other words: Andra2404 is in favour for superficial reasons. - Meco (talk, ) 15:13, August 24, 2010 (UTC) A vote is a vote, for whatever reason. (And not 10 votes either. ;) ) PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 15:18, August 24, 2010 (UTC) :Well, Meco, not all of them are superficial. 1), 2), 3), 4) and 5) are the foundation of my post. The rest .... are indeed superficial. I won't give stupid reasons just to get some badges. If blogs are really that hard to maintain, then I won't just asks for them to get those awards. And I never asked for 10 votes, PsiSeveredHead. I just wanted to give 10 reasons (but it turned out I had only 5). The upper post was .... kinda stupid. This one is more serious. If we can't have blogs, then forums are very good and the only reason I voted for blogs is number 1. A badge collector. This is what I am. Andra2404 15:48, August 24, 2010 (UTC) ::Why are blogs more accessible? We could very well have a big link on every page like "go to forum" instead of "make blog". And it's far easier to survey existing forum threads than search through the blog categories. Administratively, I'm betting it's easier to police, kill spam, remove irrelevant or inappropriate posts, merge, etc. using forums than blogs. ::"Everyone can create a blog topic without going into the forums". Easily reversed. Everyone can make a forum thread without using blogs. Everyone can create a forum thread already, and everybody can talk about "anything" they want on the forums already. And blogs do not supplant forums. Blogs are not set up to host intensive discussions. This is what I was talking about: how gracefully can we expect a good blog post to transition into a mini-forum thread with tons and tons of replies, ''within the framework of the blog feature? Wouldn't it just be easier just to have it all on the forum, where we can use wiki markup to split things into sections and all of that? ::If anything, I would think the forums would be far more accessible and open to what can be discussed. I would almost certainly hold blogs to a much higher standard than forum, or even talk page, posts. If blogs are supposed to represent works and discussion of greater significance than those found on talk pages or forums, then it would be in the interest of the wiki to excise with due diligence and speed all those that are not worth keeping. Again, this is more administrative work. ::"Because every one else has them" is merely an "appeal to popularity". There's no analysis there, and no points to discus. - Meco (talk, ) 16:13, August 24, 2010 (UTC) :::If we have to have blogs because everyone else has them, that's just not true. Wowwiki has neither the blogs NOR the badges. Just throwing that out there. As I said below, I don't really care one way or another. Tanooki1432 19:54, August 24, 2010 (UTC) ::::Alright, alright. Don't dissect my post. I just said what I thought. I think you already gave an anti-reason for all my 10 superficially-motivated reasons. It you don't want blogs, just say it. I know we can't have blogs just because ....hmm, .... someone ..... wants some badges ..... Andra2404 10:05, August 30, 2010 (UTC) Both blogs and forums have an equal chance to result in grandstanding, flame wars and intelligent conversation. Blogs are a little more organized with the person's initial post at the top and comments at the bottom, and the comments are much easier to see who the user is (as they're in blocks). Forums are a little more disorganized and harder to see who is saying what, as some people NEVER sign their posts and some people break their comments up into paragraphs, and only sign at the very bottom of their post, making it harder to see if it's all one person's comment or several people with no signing. In the end though, I'm cool with either. If we get blogs, we get blogs, if we stick with forums, we stick with forums. Tanooki1432 15:54, August 24, 2010 (UTC) :Well, I love when some people are neutral. Thanks, Tanooki. Andra2404 10:08, August 30, 2010 (UTC) Trial How about having them for a trial period and then the community could vote on whether to keep them or not? Ausir(talk) 01:11, September 1, 2010 (UTC) :This is also an option. I could also get my badges and we would all be satisfied ! Andra2404 07:37, September 1, 2010 (UTC) :The advantage of introducing these new features to big wikis first is that the rest of us can learn from their experience without actually having to go through it ourselves. I've seen enough from their experiences already, which is why I am against it. I do not need the feature activated to draw the same conclusion. - Meco (talk, ) 16:40, September 2, 2010 (UTC) ::Well, I tried. Andra2404 14:30, September 3, 2010 (UTC) Looks Like Blogs are Coming "In keeping with the goals of the new look, our Terms of Use have been updated as well. Admins will no longer be able to completely remove core features for all users by using custom CSS or JavaScript. This is to protect the universal layout and functionality of every wiki on Wikia and ensure that users have access to all of the features available in the new design. Remember, these new terms only apply to the CSS of the wiki as a whole -- they don’t apply to your personal pages. To give a few practical examples of what this means: It’s not permitted to remove the right sidebar modules, blogs, and image attribution or add a banner that shifts the entire content area down the page, or alter the fixed width." I don't know what they mean by saying admins can no longer remove blogs, but I think this means blogs will be standard on all wikis. I will ask around. Original source: New Look Info. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 01:00, September 30, 2010 (UTC)